Good Habits Are Gifts That Keep on Giving

Once a habit is formed, it’s hard to break. If you forge good habits, those good habits will become harder and harder to break over time.And they will pay dividends your entire life.

Where did you pick up most of your habits in life? I’ll bet you never gave it much thought. Your habits did not just manifest out of thin air. They came from some source. Each source, good or bad, inspired you to adopt certain habits. The habits we adopt in life primarily come through associations we make in life, our education, our experiences and our environment.

Parents, teachers, supervisors, coaches, family, friends, spouses and teammates have the most influence over the habits we forge in life. Because good habits pay dividends throughout your lifetime, they are perhaps the best gift mentors can give to their mentees.. What are some of the best habit gifts mentors can give?

The Habit of Reading – Reading opens up your mind. It can take you to exotic places, acquire unique knowledge or help set you on the right path in life. One book can alter someone’s life, so giving books will pay dividends that are hard to put a value on.

The Habit of Exercise – Exercise is not jut good for the body, it’s good for the brain. And there are many recent studies which provide evidence that exercise increases your life span. Offer your kids, friends or a work colleague to become your gym partner. In a few months, the gym habit will form and will pay dividends for the rest of their lives.

The Habit of Building Rich Relationships – Teaching others relationship-building habits such as making happy birthday calls, life event calls and hello calls helps them to build strong, lifetime relationships. Equally important is teaching others the habit of focusing their relationship-building efforts on the people who will help improve their lives, or Rich Relationships. Rich Relationships are relationships you build with other positive, success-minded people. Because birds of a feather like to flock together, when you forge one relationship with a positive, success-minded individual you tap into their network of positive, success-minded relationships. These Rich Relationships pay dividends throughout your life by opening doors for you. They also help guide you in life in taking action and making decisions that will help improve your life.

The Habit of Saving – When you learn the importance of saving early in your life, this habit pays dividends down the road in the form of financial independence. Thanks for modern medicine, individuals can now look forward to living into the eighties and nineties. That one habit gift of saving can therefore pay dividends that last throughout your retirement years.

The Habit of Being Frugal – Being frugal is not the same as being cheap. Frugal means spending your money on quality. Quality purchases last for many years and that means you can enjoy that car, furniture or dress for a long time. When you give the habit gift of frugality, you are giving that person a period of extended enjoyment in the purchases they make during their lifetime.

Tom Corley understands the difference between being rich and poor: at age nine, his family went from being multi-millionaires to broke in just one night, due to a catastrophic fire that destroyed his Dad's thriving business. For fourteen years they struggled with poverty. There were eleven in Tom's family, and they lived in constant fear of losing their home.

Driven by the desire to unlock the secrets to success and failure, Tom spent five years studying the daily activities of 233 rich people and 128 poor people. He discovered there was an immense difference between the habits of the rich and the poor. During his research he identified over 300 daily activities that separated the “haves” from the “have nots.” Tom decided to write a book to share what he learned. That book, Rich Habits: The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals (1st Edition), went on to become an Amazon Bestseller in the United States forty times over a three year period. To give you some perspective, in order to be a true Amazon Bestseller in the United States, where you actually receive a specific Bestseller designation from Amazon, you need to be in the top 100 of all books sold by Amazon in the United States in a given day. Rich Habits did that for nearly thirty straight days, rising as high as #7, eclipsing such Bestselling authors such as Stephen Covey, Robert Kiyosaki and J.K. Rowlings. Imagine that - an unknown, first-time, self-published author selling more books than J.K. Rowlings!

Tom now travels the world, sharing his Rich Habits and motivating audiences at industry conferences, corporate events, universities, multi-level marketing group events, and global sales organizations’ presentations and finance conferences. He has even spoken on the same stage with famous entrepreneurs and personal development experts, such as Sir Richard Branson, Robin Sharma, Dr. Daniel Amen, and many others.

Tom has shared his insights on various national and international network, cable, and Internet television programs such as CBS Evening News, NBC News, Yahoo Financially Fit, Money.com, India TV, News.com Australia, and a host of others. He has been interviewed on many prestigious nationally syndicated radio shows, including the Dave Ramsey Show, Marketplace Money, and WABC.

Tom has been featured in numerous print magazines—such as Money magazine, Inc. Magazine, SUCCESS Magazine, Entrepreneur magazine, Fast Company magazine, More magazine, Epoca Magazine (Brazil’s largest weekly) and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine—and various online publications, including USA Today, CNN, MSN Money, SUCCESS.com, Inc.com, and the Huffington Post. Tom is a frequent contributor to Business Insider, Credit.com, Bankrate.com and a few other media outlets.

National publicity has garnered international media attention for Tom and his Rich Habits research spanning 23 countries. Broadcast media, online publications, and television throughout Asia, the South Pacific, Europe, the United Kingdom, and Central and South America have shared his powerful message.

In an effort to help parents, grandparents, teachers and adults become success mentors to the younger generation, Tom released his second book, Rich Kids: How to Raise Our Children to be Happy and Successful in Life in 2014. This book was the self-help category winner of the 2015 New York Book Festival and Runner-up in the prestigious 2015 Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards Contest. In 2016 Tom released his third book, Change Your Habits, Change Your Life. This book provides the latest science on habit change as well as more of Tom's unique research on the specific habits that helped transform 177 ordinary individuals into self-made millionaires.

Besides being an author, Tom is also a CPA, CFP, and hold a master’s degree in taxation. As president of Cerefice and Company, CPAs, Tom heads one of the premier financial firms in New Jersey.

Comments

I’d also add:
Habit of Good Health: adequate sleep and proper diet contribute to long living and optimal performance throughout the day.
Habit of Thinking: spending time to think about goals and direction of life, creativity, and meditation to understand who you are and find meaning in your existence.
Habit of Discipline: longevity and stickability are key to success in any arena and they must be developed.
Habit of Continual Growth: stagnation is death in physical and spiritual realm